A Happy Ending

After being trapped in his attic for 16 days, 76 year old Gerald Martin is rescued by FEMA!

"Madden [one of the rescuers] said the heat in the attic might have been even worse, perhaps fatal, except for shade provided by a fallen tree."

I see this as the hand of God providing some relief for Mr. Martin. I'll bet Mr. Martin has gotten to know the Lord a lot better over these past two weeks.

1Peter 4:12 "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:"

I wonder if his family had given up hope that he might still be alive.

Court Appointments

There are two vacancies on the Supreme Court on President Bush's watch. John Roberts will more than likely be confirmed as the replacement for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist was, after all, a conservative so the Dems won't put up as much of a fight. The real fight, it appears, will be the nominee who is set to replace Justice Sandra Day-O'Connor. Somewhere along the line the Democrats decided that a Republican president must replace liberal for liberal on the Supreme Court. I would bet a million dollars that these same Democrats would not reciprocate that same ideal for a Democratic President if a vacancy came up and the justice to be replaced were a conservative. In fact, they would insist that the President is free to appoint whomsoever he felt to be qualified for the position, and Republicans would not disagree.

My hope is that President Bush will not acquiesce to Democratic bellyaching in an effort to be "a uniter, not a divider" when selecting a nominee to replace O'Connor. I don't believe in being divisive for divisiveness' sake, but if one's prinicples are Godly and they divide then so be it. I hope President Bush will do what is best for the country and not what is best for his political image or his legacy.

Unbelievable...But Not Really

I'm almost speechless. This man has the AUDACITY to blame the federal government (namely, Bush and his administration) for the deaths of the people who were stranded at the shelters when time was of the essence and it turns out that it was his uppity-ineptitude that delayed the evacuation of these people?!

Mayor Nagin, you're definitely no Rudy Giuliani.

News Max

Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005 11:38 a.m. EDT

Ray Nagin: School Buses Not Good Enough

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin garnered a ton of publicity with a profanity-laced interview he gave to WWL radio last Thursday, where he blasted President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for not coming to rescue his city in time.

However, Nagin's most newsworthy comments - where he explained why he didn't use hundreds of city school buses to evacuate his city's flood victims - went almost unnoticed.

Turns out, Nagin turned his nose up at the yellow buses, demanding more comfortable Greyhound coaches instead.

"I need 500 buses, man," he told WWL. "One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here."

Nagin described his response:

"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

While Nagin was waiting for his Greyhound fleet, Katrina's floodwaters swamped his school buses, rendering them unusable. (emphasis added)

The Blame Game & Race Baiters

I really hate the blame game and I especially detest it when the race card is pulled without warrant, but when the people blaming others are really the one's at fault it should be exposed as such. I am getting really tired of hearing that President Bush hates black people and that because the vast majority of the New Orleans evacuees are black he took his time in sending aid. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe the problem was a combination of bureaucratic red tape and incompetence.

I am sure that we can find fault in every level of government, but the bulk of it lies within the local level. (Some of the fault lies with the people themselves for not having evacuated when they were urged to do so. However, there were many poor and elderly people who had no way of evacuating.) Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, I believe, were incompetent in this crisis. Nagin had over 200 school buses which he could have used to evacuate the people. Nagin and Governor Blanco are still at odds as to whether or not they should call for a mandatory evacuation of those who remain in the city. These two people know the demographics of their city and state better than the federal government. It was the city's and state's responsibility to have a workable plan to help those in need of evacuation. It is a well known fact that the citizens of the city of New Orleans would be in grave danger due to much needed repairs of the levee which kept the waters at bay. Leo has some excellent links to articles which go into great detail about the dangers that lurked in New Orleans in his September 5 blog entry.

There is much more, but I do not have the time to go into it all. President Bush strongly suggested to the the Governor of Louisiana that she should begin evacuating the people before the storm hit. Nagin and Blanco need to discontinue blaming everyone else for their own incompetence.

I'll leave you with this all important tidbit of information that is sure to get your blood boiling and raise your blood pressure. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their ilk also need to refrain from blaming President Bush for things in which he had no control. From what I understand, the mainstream media is choosing not to report this important information.

News Max

Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005 11:52 p.m. EDT

Gov. Kathleen Blanco's Bureaucrats Blocked Food and Water

The Red Cross was reportedly ready to deliver food, water and other supplies to flood-ravaged refugees who were sweltering inside New Orleans' Superdome last week - but the relief was blocked by bureaucrats who worked for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Fox News Channel's Major Garrett reported Wednesday that the Red Cross had "trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go ... to the Superdome and Convention Center."

But the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, Garrett said, "told them they could not go."

"The Red Cross tells me that Louisiana's Department of Homeland Security said, 'Look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or Convention Center, we want to get them out,'" he explained.

"So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water, the Red Cross was standing by ready [and] the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go."